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Lyttelton Times, Volume LXXIII, Issue 9120, 4 June 1890, Page 4

Unless Lieutenant Wightman, the Secretary of the Balaclava Commission, has lied or been misrepresented, Englishmen have one thing more to be very much ashamed of. The lieutenant has stated in a Kent newspaper that there are no less than eighteen survivors of the renowned Six Hundred known to be in the direst distress and the lowest depths of misery. Several of these men are In-jfch©' workhouse-otliers are^etreat*

beggars; others are crippled and in extreme want. Others are described as old and out of work—words which speak volumes to those who know. Lieutenant Wightman says that in former years enough in subscriptions used to bo forthcoming from the public to enable the survivors to meet together at an annual dinner. Those who could afford paid for their own dinners : the subscriptions went to aid the utterly poor veterans to,come to the gathering. Now the public has csased to subscribe, and the dinner can no longer be given. The lieutenant says further : “ Lord Cardigan’s words to the survivors of the Six Hundred the morning after the charge had been repeated to me, although I was not there to hear them. He said: ‘ Men, you have done a glorious deed! England will be proud of you, and grateful to you. If you live to get home, be sure you will all he provided for. Not one of you fine fellows will ever have to seek refuge in the workhouse ! Lieutenant Wightman gives the names and—when known—the addresses of his eighteen neglected paupers. One of them, he says, was formerly orderly to the Duke of Cambridge. This man, Doyle by name, got £4 oat of the Duke last year after repeated applications and four months’ waiting. The whole story sounds almost too disgraceful and shocking to be true. If there is one thing England is proud of it is of her soldiers, and of the gratitude she shows for their heroism. Yet, if these statements are not utterly false, England’s heroes are treated as badly as street dogs. Contrast this with the magnificently lavish generosity shown in America to the pensioned veterans of the Civil War. Englishmen are accustomed to sneer at Yankee greed, and class Americans as much more a commercial than a heroic race. The Yankees, at any rate, know how to be grateful for heroism. They spend their millions freely over their old soldiers.